Mr. Holyoake, it is true, abjures the name both of an _Atheist_ and _Infidel_. We admire the prudence of his policy, but cannot subscribe to the correctness of his reasons for doing so. "Mr. Southwell," he says, "has taken an objection to the term Atheism. We are glad he has. We have disused it a long time.... We disuse it, because Atheist is a worn-out word. Both the ancients and the moderns have understood by it _one without God, and also without morality_. Thus the term connotes more than any well-informed and earnest person accepting it ever included in it; that is, the word carries with it associations of immorality, which have been repudiated by the Atheist as seriously as by the Christian. Non-theism is a term less open to the same misunderstanding, as it implies the simple non-acceptance of the Theist's explanation of the origin and government of the world."[252]
But "Non-theism" was afterwards exchanged for "Secularism," as a term less liable to misconstruction, and more correctly descriptive of the real import of the theory. "_Secularists_ was, perhaps, the proper designation of all who dissented extremely from the religious opinions of the day."--"Freethinking is the _Secular_ sphere; drawing its line of demarcation between time and eternity, it works _for the welfare of man in this world_"--"The _Secularist_ is the larger and more comprehensive designation of the Atheist."[253] With all this coyness and fastidiousness about names, there can be no doubt that the character of the system is essentially atheistic: "We refuse to employ the term God, not having any definite idea of it which we can explain to others,--not knowing any theory of such an existence as will enable us to defend that dogma to others. We therefore prefer the honest, though unusual designation of Atheist; not using it in the sense in which it is commonly employed, as signifying _one without morality_, but in its stricter sense of describing those _without any determinate knowledge of Deity_."[254] "That the Atheist does consider matter to be eternal is perfectly correct; and for this reason, no Atheist could make use of such a term as that matter _originally_ possessed, or _originally_ was; whatever is eternal has no origin, beginning, or end.... Organized plants and animals--man also with his noble intellect--are not _now_ at least produced by supernatural causes; and the Atheist, without positively asserting that there _must_ have been a beginning to life in this earth, argues that if a plant, an animal, or a man, can be produced at this time without supernatural interference, so also a first plant, a first animal, or a first man, may have been naturally produced in this earth under the right circumstances,--circumstances which probably cannot occur in the present condition of our globe. Our difficulties and our ignorance are not in the least dispelled, but on the contrary complicated and increased, by the adoption of the ancient belief in a Supernatural Contriver and Maker, who, after existing from eternity in absolute void and solitude, suddenly proceeded to create the universe out of nothing or out of himself."[255] The editor thinks "the course to be taken is to use the term Secularists as indicating general views, and accept the term Atheist at the point at which Ethics declines alliance with Theology; always, however, explaining the term Atheist to mean 'not seeing God,' visually or inferentially; never suffering it to be taken (as Chalmers, Foster, and many others represent it) for Anti-theism, that is, hating God, denying God, as _hating_ implies personal knowledge as the ground of dislike, and _denying_ implies infinite knowledge as the ground of disproof."[256]